


a life in your shape

by taizi



Series: spring doves [3]
Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Established Relationship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Growing Up Together, M/M, Sleepy Cuddles, also snufkin is a cat, the best kind, very soft boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 13:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18801691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: Yearning desperately for someone isn’t a pleasant feeling, not all the time, but the giddy expectation of seeing them again is sweeter than apricot jam. Moomin is suddenly much closer to understanding part of the reason why Snufkin is so adamant about leaving in the fall.Most of it has to do with the manner of creature he is, the wanderlust in his heart and the hungry curiosity that drives him from place to place, but perhaps some of it has to do with how nice it is to miss someone you love and be missed by them when you’re away."Oh," Moomin says, very still. "Oh, I see."





	a life in your shape

“Oh, my,” Moominmamma says, pressing a hand to her mouth. It doesn’t quite manage to hide her smile. “ _Someone_ looks comfortable.”

“Shh, don’t wake him!” Moomin whispers. He can feel his face warming at everyone’s attention but he scowls around at them anyway. Hunching his shoulders and hovering protectively, Moomin insists, “He’ll be embarrassed.”

“He _should_ be,” My says immediately. But there’s no heat to it, and she nudges Sniff with her boot none too gently when it looks like he’s about to say something else. “Let’s start a new game. I’ll be the dealer.”

Moominmamma sets a folded blanket within reach of the sofa before she moves back toward the kitchen. Snorkmaiden is grinning, bright and full of mischief, but she reaches over to take Moomin’s playing cards without making fun.

The moment Moomin’s hands are freed, they gravitate automatically to the mumrik on his lap.

Snufkin makes a noise in his sleep that is entirely contented and rolls over so that his face is smushed against Moomin’s stomach. Oblivious to the muffled giggles from the other side of the table, thank goodness, and dreaming deeply.

He gets this way sometimes, when it’s warm and sunny and the air is sweet. Moomin can’t count how many times he’s nearly stumbled over Snufkin having a nap in the middle of the garden or the flowering meadow. Typically, Moomin is quick to crawl in and join him. It isn’t strange at all!

But he’s never done it _here_ before. On the sofa in the drawing room, with all their friends around, right before lunch. Snufkin nodded off with his cards still in his hand, slumping over onto Moomin’s shoulder.

“Oh, Snuf, you’ll ache all over if you sleep like that,” Moomin had said right away, thinking little of it. To be fair, there was a patch of sunlight pouring right over them from the window, which made their seat the _perfect_ spot for an afternoon nap. “Lay down properly, I don’t mind.”

Half-gone already, Snufkin promptly did as he was told. He took off his hat, scooted far enough away that he could lay down with his head on Moomin’s leg, and was out like a light. That was nearly twenty minutes ago, and Moomin has lost every single game he’s played since. To say he’s distracted is, perhaps, an understatement.

It’s just-- Snufkin is very _soft_ when he’s asleep. He’s solid but not heavy, and warm like a hot water bottle. Every other breath he takes catches on a faint purr, so quiet Moomin is probably the only one in the room close enough to hear. Snufkin’s arms are curled up by his chest, the sleeves of his weathered smock riding up, and his dappled wrists are like velvet where the dark fur of his paws meets his much paler forearms.

Moomin smooths his fingers over one of Snufkin’s wrists with unending care, marveling at the texture. He’s very different from a fluffy moomin or a snork. Even his half-sisters don’t have paws or a tail or eyes that shine like lamps in the dark. He’s a creature all his own, as far as Moomin knows. Even if there were others just like him out there somewhere in the big world he so loves to travel, Moomin can’t imagine they’d hold a candle to _his_ Snufkin. No one ever could.

“He’s really tired,” Sniff says through a mouthful of one of the cinnamon rolls leftover from breakfast. When did he filch those from the kitchen? Moomin didn’t even see him get up. “Winter must have been hard on him last year, huh?”

Moomin’s mouth is already open to scold Sniff for hogging all the leftover sweets, but that draws him up short. He blinks, and says, “I dunno. He didn’t tell me anything about it being hard.”

“He wouldn’t, would he?” My says impatiently, glowering at what must be a losing hand of cards. “You’d worry, and he would feel bad, and then he’d have to make it up to you somehow. He saves himself a lot of hassle by only telling you about the good stuff.”

Stricken, Moomin blurts, “I make him feel bad?”

“That’s not what she meant, Moomintroll,” Snorkmaiden jumps in. She looks like she’d like to pat his arm, but doesn’t want to reach over the sleeping Snufkin to do it. She settles for an affectionate smile. “She just means he’s considerate of your feelings. He would be really sorry if he hurt you, so he’s careful not to, that’s all.”

Little My says, “That’s _not_ what I meant, you’re putting words in my mouth,” and Sniff loses interest in the conversation in favor of another roll, but Moomin thinks about it. He can’t stop thinking about it. He turns it over and over in his head, even as he goes on carefully petting one of Snufkin’s wrists.

Truly, the only things he knows about the world and Snufkin’s journeys are the things Snufkin tells him. Snufkin has sometimes told him about little things that have gone wrong, the days he only had mushrooms and berries to eat because the fish wouldn’t bite, the nights his tent leaked or let mosquitoes in. But surely he must get tired sometimes. Surely it storms, surely he gets lost, maybe he even gets _hurt._

Moomin can feel his stomach turning at the idea, and realizes My has a point. If Snufkin ever told him something terrible had happened to him when he was away and all alone, Moomin would probably be sick with worry every time he left from then on, and it would turn every autumn sour.

But-- he isn’t a little child anymore. He _knows_ better. After all these years, he knows that the three quarters of the year Snufkin stays in the valley is more of a compromise than Moomin had any right to ask for or expect. It’s blatantly going against his nature, to stay so long and return every year, but here he is for yet another summer. Here he is, deeply asleep while his friends talk and play around him, closer to them than he’s ever let himself get before, a companionship he had to learn.

Moomin thinks of how little he’s given in return and bites down on an unhappy noise before it slips out.

“Lunch is ready, everyone,” Moominmamma says from the kitchen, her voice a bit softer than usual. “We’re eating out in the yard today.”

Papa must have set up the table and chairs already, or Mama probably would have asked Moomin to help. As his friends lay aside their cards and get up to file outside, Moomin says, “Mama, can I eat later?”

“Of course, dear. I’ll put a plate aside for Snufkin, too.”

When the door closes behind her, Moomin and Snufkin are alone in the house. It’s quiet, the mealtime chatter muffled through the walls and removed from this peaceful, sun-filled room. Everything is touched with gold, dust motes winking in and out of the light.

Moomin has never been so happy to sit still. He’s a little hungry, and his leg is starting to itch, but he doesn’t want to move an inch.

“I don’t ever want you to feel bad, Snuf,” Moomin tells his sleeping friend, petting the dandelion puff of Snufkin’s hair into order with his fingers. It takes some work, since Snufkin very rarely wants anything to do with brushes, and Moomin bends all his attention to the task. “You’re always looking after me, but I’d like to look after you, too. Every now and then, at least. You hardly need it, but when you do, I’d like it to be me.”

He doesn’t want there to be a line between them that Snufkin thinks he can’t cross. He doesn’t want there to be things Snufkin can’t tell him.

Moomin will never be _happy_ to see Snufkin leave, and he’ll always miss Snufkin when he’s gone-- but a few weeks out of the year is small change, really. And it’s always such a delight to see him in the spring that it makes the time spent missing him worthwhile. It makes Moomin’s heart race, to hear that harmonica drifting over the field for the first time in the new year, to run headlong down the hill and crash into Snufkin’s waiting arms, to love until he aches from it.

He doesn’t think he would ever want to give up those moments of meeting again. Yearning desperately for someone isn’t a pleasant feeling, not all the time, but the giddy expectation of seeing them again is sweeter than apricot jam. Moomin is suddenly much closer to understanding part of the reason why Snufkin is so adamant about leaving in the fall.

Most of it has to do with the manner of creature he is, the wanderlust in his heart and the hungry curiosity that drives him from place to place, but perhaps some of it has to do with how nice it is to miss someone you love and be missed by them when you’re away.

“Oh,” Moomin says, very still. “Oh, I see.”

“Hmm,” Snufkin murmurs, barely rousing. “What do you see?”

Moomin shakes his head, pushing the untidy fringe out of Snufkin’s slitted eyes. The touch lingers, because it has no reason not to, his friend a familiar shape beneath his hands. “Just thinking about how clueless I’ve been, that’s all. We can talk more about it when you’re awake.”

Snufkin blinks a few times, giving the words a moment to permeate. Once he’s made sense of them, he agrees, “When I’m awake.” A pause. “You don’t look very comfortable.”

“I’d rather lie down with you than sit up anymore,” Moomin admits.

So they shuffle and maneuver themselves into a different position, a well-practiced ritual from all the stormy nights Snufkin was bullied into sharing Moomin’s bedroom over the years, and Moomin remembers the blanket Mama left for them on the table by the sofa.

The sofa’s not really meant for both a moomin and a mumrik to nap there together, but they manage. Snufkin can sleep in impossible places, and he fits really anywhere he puts his mind to. He’s mostly laying across Moomin to consolidate space, and the weight of him, and the weight of the blanket, and the weight of the sunlight touching down on them from all the windows, makes staying awake for very much longer a Herculean task.

Still, Moomin doesn’t want to sleep yet. He touches Snufkin’s hair, distracted by it, and Snufkin says, “I should cut it.”

“If you want,” Moomin says agreeably. When Snufkin cuts it, he cuts it all the way gone, and his head is left covered in an uneven fuzz not unlike the dappled fur on his wrists. Moomin likes that as much as he likes having this ridiculous mane to mess with. There’s not much about Snufkin that Moomin _doesn’t_ like, really. “Or we could try braiding it. Mymble probably knows how.”

Snufkin makes a noise of interest at that. He’ll hold off cutting it, now. Moomin smiles at knowing him so well, and bumps his nose to the top of Snufkin’s head.

“You’re silly,” he says fondly. “Go back to sleep.”

He would chafe at this, if it were a few years ago. He would want every second of Snufkin’s attention he could have, and he would want to fill those seconds with adventures and games and memories for Snufkin to take with him into the wider world when he left, as if begging _don’t forget me._

Moomin is a little embarrassed to have been that child. He was kind and thoughtful without a doubt, because he was raised that way by kind and thoughtful parents, but sometimes he was very greedy, and never more so than with Snufkin.  

Snufkin, who would never forget him. Who has seen the whole world and then some and chooses their little valley to return to, year after year. Who wrote Moomin a song of his very own, the happiest song Moomin’s ever heard, and plays it in both greeting and farewell.

One doesn’t have to be present to be here, Moomin thinks. To say Snufkin is truly gone is to say he’s not there in Moomin’s heart, and that is a lie and a falsehood and every horrible thing in between. And it’s okay to miss him, because loving him while he’s away isn’t quite the same as loving him while he’s here to hold, but it’s nothing to be sad about.

In fact, he’s rather lucky.

“Don’t forget, though,” he says, blinking through a wetness in his eyes he can’t explain. “I want to talk to you about something when we wake up.”

“Something important?” comes the mumble, muffled against Moomin’s shoulder.

“Oh, very. I have an apology for you. And an epiphany to share!”

“The apology I don’t need. But any epiphany of yours will be an inspiration.” Snufkin’s tail swings once, lazy, where it’s hanging over the side of the sofa. He stretches like melting rubber, all languid limbs and self-satisfaction. “We’ll write it into a song.”

Absurdly touched, Moomin says, “You don’t even know what it’s about yet.”

“A poem, then. A secret one, for you and me. Can you tell me what the theme will be, or am I meant to wait for the rest of this very important conversation?”

“You’re silly,” Moomin says another time, because it bears repeating. He noses Snufkin’s hair again. “I suppose I can tell you now, since it’s nothing you wouldn’t have guessed. The theme will be love.”

“Ah.” Snufkin sounds pleased, but not surprised. Moomin can feel the shape of a mumrik smile pressed to his fur. “The very best one.”

**Author's Note:**

> [we've all seen this animatic by now but still](https://youtu.be/Q1i0pMCmN7k)


End file.
